Electronic ad serving systems are well-known in the art, with perhaps the most famous and successful (at this time) being the Google Adwords and Adsense programs. The goal of such systems generally is to ensure that advertising material is more closely tailored to the particular interests/needs of online users who are performing searches and/or perusing content at various websites.
The prior art “Adwords” system used by Google allows advertisers to bid and participate in an auction for “keywords” (and in some cases semantic variants) expected to be presented by users searching for information on the Internet. For example, an advertiser may elect to bid $1 for the right to present ads within the Google search interface whenever a search is performed concerning real estate in certain locales in California. These ads then appear in the search pages in a so-called “sponsored link” area to allow users to distinguish them from so-called “organic” search results. A similar system originated by Overture described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,269,361 (incorporated by reference herein) operates under a similar principle and allows advertisers to compete for user attention within a search interface.
The operation of the Adwords system, from the user perspective, is depicted at FIG. 3 and works generally as follows: within a search interface 300, a user enters a search query within an entry field 310, in this instance the request is “Where can I buy real estate in Berkeley.” The query is handled in a well-known fashion to retrieve (preferably multiple) individual relevant search results 321 presented within an “organic” search area 320. For more information on how search results are generated, please see U.S. Pat. No. 6,285,999 which is incorporated by reference herein. The search result entries 321 typically include at least an identifier usable by a browser (i.e., such as a URL) for clicking through to such site, as well as additional information, such as context text excerpted from the webpage to denote the correlation to the user query. These short extracted blurbs help the user to gauge the relevancy of the search result before requiring the user to click through and check the contents of the webpage.
As alluded to above, the search interface 300 also includes a Sponsored Search Results area 330, in which ads 331 sponsored by advertisers are presented along with the search results. The mechanism by which such ads are presented is well known and discussed at length at Google's website as well as in U.S. Patent Publication No. 2005/0071325 to Bem which is hereby incorporated by reference. The ads 331 typically include some descriptive text and a URL to allow click-through. Note that in some instances some of the sponsored link ads 331 can be blended with the organic search results, such as by placing them at the top of area 320 to increase their visibility. It will be understood by those skilled in the art that the above is merely an illustration and in actual practice the placement, format, etc. of the various portions of interface 300 may vary significantly from that shown.
One limitation of the prior art Adwords scheme nonetheless is that it allows advertisers to bid on keywords which may have nothing to do in fact with the user's query, or worse, may have nothing to do with the advertiser's actual business. In other words, some of the sponsored link ads 331 are only marginally relevant to the user's query 310, but they are presented because such advertisers have bid a significant premium to have such listings posted in area 330. This is referred to as “over-serving” of ads and can lead to frustrating experiences by users who click on such ads, only to find out the resulting web pages of advertising are not really related to their query. The effect is exacerbated because some “mask” the true nature of their sites through the use of advertising language which appears to mimic the search result. An example of this is shown in FIG. 3, where, for example, a Sponsored Link in the number 3 position is in fact an ad for online auctioneer, an e-commerce bookstore, or some other similarly unhelpful link. Google has attempted to remedy part of this problem through the use of its so-called Adsbot program, which purportedly studies the landing pages of advertisers to determine the relevance of such ads to keywords. However the reality is that this merely affects/adjusts the ranking of ads within the interface, and does not eliminate them from presentation to the user.
In contrast to the Adwords system, the Google Adsense program purportedly identifies, selects and presents ads on third party sites which are tailored to the content of a page being viewed by the user. A description of such system can be found in U.S. Publication No. 2004/0059708 to Dean et al. which is also incorporated by reference herein. An example of how such system works is shown generally in FIGS. 4A and 4B. For example, as shown in FIG. 4A, a web page 400 for ABC Realty includes a number of conventional links 410 as well as a content presentation area 420, in this instance, real estate listings 421. A “content” related ad 430 selected for such page 400, for example, may include an ad for a moving service. This ad is selected based on the fact that the content of page 400 (which may include other metadata not shown, and/or be based on other factors identified in Dean et al) would be correlated to a topic entry for real estate for example. Since persons purchasing new housing typically employ moving services as well, this system significantly improves the user experience by presenting advertising which is in fact more closely related to their particular needs or interests.
A similar example is shown in FIG. 4B; in this instance a web page a web page 450 for XYZ Realty includes a number of conventional links 460 as well as one or more content presentation areas 470, 475 which in this instance include relevant commercial real estate news 471 and real estate listings 421. A “content” related ad 480 selected for such page 450, for example, may include an ad for a lender offering Jumbo loans (i.e., over a certain dollar amount, such as $1 m). This ad is selected based on the fact that the content of page 450 (which may include other metadata not shown, and/or be based on other factors identified in Dean et al) would be correlated to a topic entry for “commercial” real estate for example, which would typically require a significant loan in this locale. Again it will be understood by those skilled in the art that the above is merely an illustration and in actual practice the placement, format, etc. of the various portions of interfaces 400, 450 may vary significantly from that shown.
As can be seen above, the Google Adsense program is superior from a relevancy perspective over Adwords, but, to the applicant's knowledge, the techniques in the former therein have not been extended to the actual Google initial search page itself. In other words, to date, Applicant's review of the prior art reveals that prior art search pages do not consider the content of the retrieved links/web pages in presenting advertising within the search page, at least as explained herein. Such extension, as noted below, materially benefits users, advertisers and search engine operators by presenting more relevant and useful ads at the earliest point of contact with the user. In addition, this approach can have the benefit of ameliorating “under-serving” of ads in situations where advertisers have not properly appreciated the value of certain keywords which nonetheless may be prevalent in both user queries and content relevant websites.